


Ten of Swords

by mask_and_mirror



Category: Reign (TV)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-14 07:20:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10531629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mask_and_mirror/pseuds/mask_and_mirror
Summary: Dangerous women do well to keep to themselves.Lola is a prisoner at the English court, a bargaining chip, and the closest thing to a confidante that Queen Elizabeth has had in many years. As threats to Elizabeth's crown-- and life-- increase in number and fervor, Lola's chances of making it back to Mary, or even her own son, begin to disappear. It will take a lifetime of practice as a lady-in-waiting and help from unexpected places to keep her heart from breaking and her head on her shoulders, while Elizabeth's palace plays host to courtly intrigue and deadly serious bids for power.Picks up just before Episode 18 of Season 3 and takes off in a new direction from there.





	1. Chapter 1

PROLOGUE

Now Lola’s days unrolled by ritual. Every morning someone else’s maid came, sooner or later, to her private quarters to help her get dressed. She waited below her window and looked to see how the birds flew; blackbirds were fine and crows just as well, but the sight of ravens carved a line between her brows. Elizabeth liked ravens enough to keep them in her aviary, tended day and night by an appointed keeper. To see one flying away was the same as watching coin from the royal treasury take flight. Somewhere in the palace, Elizabeth was seeing it, too.

After getting dressed, Lola attended Mass. Her acknowledged seat during the service was off to the side and toward the back of the church. She was far enough that hearing the entire service was a struggle, and she was far from Elizabeth. Far from nearly all of the permanent residents of the English court. But here with the visiting dignitaries, the wealthy merchants and aging ex-ladies-in-waiting, one didn’t have to kneel when one wasn’t inclined to kneel. One could see rows and rows beyond, where the heads bowed not toward the bishop, but toward the Queen.

After mass Elizabeth took a private meeting with her council. The courtiers hailed one another and set to meetings of their own. Lola never met with the other courtiers. Lola walked the halls, slowly so that her feet made no noise on the ancient timbers and her straining ears could catch the voices muted behind each oak door. When a door began to creak, and less careful boots tread close to her, she seated herself quickly on any hall chair. Her eyes cast down, hands quiet on her lap, she was the perfect waiting lady. For the first time in a long time, her public mask was a carbon copy of her true intentions.

When Elizabeth emerged from her privy council, the court followed her relentless strides down the hall. She progressed like a ship, undaunted by stray courtiers who begged her attention. They could follow her to the throne room, or they could move out of her way. They always followed. They were all of them swept up in her wake. You could hear the retinue coming from almost anywhere in the palace. Each step of each man and woman was imbued with purpose. Those who made this morning walk with Elizabeth were called “The Royal Fleet,” but they weren’t like the grand barges that lazily traversed the Thames on summer nights. Elizabeth’s retinue was a ship ready for war and bent on conquest. Lola had seen enough of war. She waited for them to pass and for the emptied halls to settle before she, too, found her way to the throne room.

Time flowed around the throne room like a river around a boulder. Some days Elizabeth’s supplicants were lively and interesting, and sooner than seemed possible attendants came around to light the candles lining the dimmed hall. More often than not, however, the court was restless with boredom as one after another after another came to beg for Elizabeth’s judgment or her generosity or her candor. The court hummed with anticipation for the festivities to come; every night seemed to be a different cause for celebration. The lack of sleep, the dreamy days, the wanton feasts and raucous men and women blurred together.

Sometimes Lola went days in a row without speaking to another person. She knew no one else at the court— no more than their names, their roles and their reputations, nothing more intimate than that—and she made no overtures to get to know anyone. When finally someone addressed her and she was compelled to reply she felt her jaw creak open with disuse. Her discourse was purposefully plain and unremarkable, and rarely compelled again by the same person. She was happiest when she went without conversation for uncounted hours, when she could live without explaining herself to anyone for days on end. Dangerous women do well to keep to themselves, after all.

Once in a while, Lola received a message. These messages were always delivered by a footman, barging without knocking into her quarters whether it was early morning or late evening and presenting her with a note bound by a thick red seal. Though they were few and far between, she quickly learned to anticipate the days on which she received these notes. The maids were even more reluctant than usual or refused to visit altogether. At Mass, the most exalted members of the court sat in the upper level of the sanctuary behind a lattice, whispering and scrying pens across parchment. On these days, everyone seemed to have one eye on her and one eye on everyone else. The first time she wondered how they could know what she had received in private; the second time she knew that they knew nothing except that the royal eye had rolled her way, and that they anticipated only when it would roll toward their own.

Every message said the same thing: “You are welcomed by Her Highness to join her in her private solar.” 

Was a room a “solar” if it was used in the middle of the night for dark dealings? That was when she was most often called—late enough that the last revelers had all retired, and only the queen stood alone. It was the only time that the queen was ever truly alone, and here she was calling for the Lady Lola to attend her. Though she could have taken more than one short cut or secret stair, Lola took the long walk to the private quarters of the queen. No one ever saw her, anyway.

The queen kept antiqued furniture in these rooms. She had said more than once that she preferred to keep the older, more tatty chairs and tapestries out of the public eye, but one visit was enough to tell Lola that there was another reason for the shift in decor. The chairs and settees were larger, more ungainly than the refined Italianate pieces used in the public throne room, and some panels in the tapestries were going faded and threadbare, but their wear and tear came from the kings of old. Clawfoot sofas prowled the worn floors; tapestries depicted the slaying of beasts out of myth. Even the soot stains on the curtains spoke of the roaring fires that warmed the halls of Henry V, and the chairs bearing scratched legs were scarred by the boar hounds of Stephen of Blois. This was the queen’s true seat of power, in the ancient house of a god-granted royal line.

Now the queen called for Lola at an hour marked only as late as the candle that had worn itself down some hours previously in her room. A hurried young man, a card with a spidery script, and a path through the palace lit only by tapers at the ends of halls. The in-between space was grew dark until it grew light; was straight until she turned. Lola didn’t peer into the darkness anymore. She plunged in and through it.

Down one hall, wide and broken by open doors she heard a rustle of fabric that rose in volume like a flock of birds’ wings beating. It put her in mind of the queen’s ravens, flying out and away from their keep. She did not look to see the truth of the noise she had heard; she did not think to find the truth of what she knew would happen in the palace that night.

Enough time to yourself… you begin to believe in omens.


	2. Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A royal summons; a portentous find.

CHAPTER ONE

 

When Lola arrived at the solar, the queen stood looking out through the large window. The night outside was moonless, impenetrably black, and the queen plumbed its depths nevertheless.

 

Lola scuffed her boot on the floor and the queen turned at the noise. Her face was drawn, white, and impassive, as always. Her long-fingered hands were expressive; they clasped and unclasped each other, twisted a ring and made fitful gestures in the air, seemingly against her will. Lola dropped into a curtsey, and the queen waved her right hand in singular approval.

 

Lola allowed her gaze to move up from the floor again. The queen was dressed in gold-toned mules, a burgundy skirt and a gold brocade stomacher, her burgundy sleeves pouched neatly at the wrists and flaring out widely at the elbows to reflect in width the size of her highness’s grandeur. The outfit was elegant , but a down-dressing from what she must have worn for the evening’s festivities. Her hair was still pinned up, with large pearl drops—warming and white in the light cast by the roaring fire and sumptuous free-standing candles in the room—scattered throughout the coiffure.

 

The queen tilted her head, gesturing that Lola should sit. The firelight moved across the queen’s face, highlighting the discoloration in her eyes, the only indication of how tonight was going to go: the queen was tired.

 

Lola chose a seat near the fire. She sank into the worn old chair and felt the warmth of the fire settle over her, like a blanket too close up over her mouth. She breathed in and out in the dry heat.

 

“I hope I’ve not called for you at a bad time,” said Elizabeth.

 

Lola could laugh. She could open her mouth and let out a release of crackling sounds like the wood breaking down in the fireplace. That was laughter, wasn’t it? Something breaking down inside of you.

 

“Your Highness,” Lola said instead, inclining her head in Elizabeth’s direction. “I am always here whenever you need me.”

 

Elizabeth settled herself in her common chair nearest the fire, so near that the flames danced and mingled close with her brilliant red curls. Her drawn expression was unmoved. She didn’t take energy from the fire—she cooled it.

 

“Oh, Lola,” said Elizabeth with a sigh. “I hope we can be more familiar with one another tonight.” She allowed her arms to fall to the sides of the chair, let herself rest finally against the threadbare back. “I have had enough… Today. Well.”

 

Elizabeth’s gaze drifted toward the fire, pushing her thoughts into it, letting it burn away the tail-ends.

 

Lola sat back and mimicked her queen’s casual pose. Her skin couldn’t acclimate in this room; she was so warm but she couldn’t break into a sweat. Sitting still in this room kept her attuned to the passage of time. Though called to the queen’s attention at odd intervals, and though her days otherwise rolled by dreary and unnumbered, sitting here brought her mind into sharp focus. Tonight the queen wanted a confidante; Lola could sense it, and she could play it.

 

Lola smiled widely at Elizabeth. “I understand perfectly,” she says, “My Dear Lady.”

 

Elizabeth smiled back at that the only way she ever does these days: lips pulling back in a firm line, more grit than grin.

 

“The Austrians?” Lola asked.

 

“Who else?” Elizabeth confirmed with an eye roll. “I wish I could say we spent all night dancing, but you know the Austrians…”

 

“They’re all talk,” Lola finished. She lifted one shoulder in a shrug, felt the fabric of her gown catch on the back of the old chair. “Sometimes talk is more exhausting than anything else.”

 

“I should say it always is.”

 

Elizabeth’s brows knit, ever so slightly, in the middle.

 

“Isn’t it fun,” Lola offered, “at any rate, to have all these men chasing after you?”

 

Elizabeth’s brow relaxed again. “That’s something I haven’t considered since my youth.”

 

“My Lady—“

 

“Stop,” Elizabeth said, raising one hand, but she laughed. “Not tonight, Lola. I am too tired.”

 

She always looked tired. That was how Lola had known her all these months at English court: thin and white and at her whit’s end. What was the difference tonight?

 

Lola stood up. She walked over and she knelt before Elizabeth. Slowly, deliberately, she laid her head in the woman’s lap.

 

The long white fingers settled in her hair.

 

“My Lady,” said Lola with a sigh. “You work too hard.”

 

The fingers stroked her hair.

 

“If I could ease your burdens, I would. Anything you wish me to do, I will. I am ever at your command.”

 

Running over a curl, twisting it gently.

 

“I always pray for your health. For your happiness.”

 

Elizabeth’s hand was cold. How could she be so cold, so close to the fire?

 

“I know you pray constantly, Lola,” said Elizabeth. “That’s why I asked you here tonight.”

 

Something moved into Lola’s field of vision. Something small, metallic, placed on Elizabeth’s lap.

 

“I want you to tell me what this is.”

 

The hand was removed. Lola lifted her head; her vision focused on the object.

 

“A saint’s medal,” Lola breathed.

 

It was no bigger than her thumbnail. A sterling piece, the form so detailed that only a master silversmith could have minted it.

 

“I know that much,” said Elizabeth. “I want you to tell me what it means.”

 

A man, holding the tiniest model of a church in one hand, palm fronds in the other, beset by three stones on his shoulders and a martyr’s halo behind him. Small, but clear in the intricate rendering.

 

Lola looked up at Elizabeth. The woman’s face was alight.

 

“My mother would be disappointed were she to hear what I will admit to you now,” said Lola. “But unfortunately I can’t recognize all the saints by their common appearance.”

 

Lola picked up the medal. She turned it over and over between her fingers until it flashed in the light of the fire.

 

“This afternoon I spent many hours at work in my privy chamber,” Elizabeth began. “I had much to think over and much progress to make with regards to the stirrings at Le Havre. I often pray for the lord’s guidance, that He ensures that I rule my people justly. That is something we protestants may do, you know: we have no need of a mediary like these saints you don’t even remember.”

 

Elizabeth’s face softened.

 

“I may speak directly to God.”

 

Lola wondered if Elizabeth would find it funny that, in that moment, she looked like no one so much as the Virgin Mary, her elegant white face looking down at her, beatific in the fire glow.

 

“I consulted my prayer book,” Elizabeth continued, “To look again at the service we heard today and to think about how I may use its teachings in my work. And like a marker I’d placed there myself, I found this silver piece tucked between the pages, right at today’s service.”

 

The medal was growing warmer. It was the heat, the warmth of her hands. Lola held it out to give back to Elizabeth, but the woman raised her eyebrows in a singular expression, so Lola palmed it.

 

“You are my clever one,” said Elizabeth. “And you are my resident Catholic. I brought you here tonight because there is no one more qualified than you to tell me what this saint’s medal means and how it came to be in the one room where I conduct my private affairs.”

 

“If I may…” Lola stood and backed to her chair. A few moments ago she had dreaded this very seat but now the broken-down wadding, the hunting scene embroidered across its back worn smooth, were welcoming to her, far from Elizabeth. She held the medal still and peered at it closely as though deciphering the intricate little figure, but she already knew everything about it.

 

“It depicts Saint Christopher, my Lady,” she said. “I recognize here, you see, he carries an armload of things. Saint Christopher is the patron saint of lost things.” She put the medal in her own lap, quirking the corner of her mouth in a smile. “Funny, that someone should lose their Saint Christopher medal…”

 

“It’s not funny,” said Elizabeth. “It’s iconography. It’s blasphemy to our lord and our way of life.”

 

“Blasphemy that won’t be repeated, now that they’ve lost it,” said Lola. “Perhaps a lesson in cherishing indulgences.”

 

“A lesson for whom?” asked Elizabeth. “Belief in trinkets and tokens and icons has been prohibited here since my mother was queen. I want to know whom it belongs to. I want to ensure that lesson is driven home.”

 

Lola shrugged.

 

“Do you know,” Elizabeth began, and at these words she stood. “Whose medal this is?”

 

“I wouldn’t know. I see no inscription to indicate its owner.”

 

Elizabeth did not walk closer, as Lola had expected her to. She stood and her face was motionless and her voice was soft, and yet when she spoke again Lola felt too close, as though the very walls of the room had pushed in on her.

 

“You will tell me of any Catholics who might seek to work against me, won’t you, Lola?”

 

“Of course,” said Lola.

 

Elizabeth nodded, slowly, appraising her lady’s response.

 

“Easy to say, isn’t it? Then why don’t I up the charge? What if I were to ask you to find out who has been in my privy chamber and why they feel the need to communicate with me through blasphemous trifles?”

 

“Of course,” said Lola. All promises were easy to make at night, no dawn on the horizon.

 

“So be it,” said Elizabeth. She held out one long-fingered white hand. “I’ve finally found an occupation for you.”

 

Lola walked over to place the medal in Elizabeth’s hand, but as she raised her arm, Elizabeth reached out and grasped Lola’s hand between both of her own. The movement tucked the medal securely in Lola’s grip.

 

“You may yet find ease if you have the medal with you,” said Elizabeth. “I must know the answer. You must tell me by September.”

 

“September? Four months’ time?” asked Lola, then, “My Lady. Forgive me, but I don’t…”

 

Lola breathed out, shallow, so close to Elizabeth. She felt her own hand uncomfortably warm within Elizabeth’s cool grasp. She said, “I have no friends at court, Catholic or otherwise. I have no idea where to begin to find who may seek to influence you.”

 

“ _I_ am your friend,” said Elizabeth with a squeeze of the hand. “Begin at once.”

 

Lola saw Elizabeth’s eyes moving rapidly to assess her own. The queen’s gaze glowed with anticipation. Her mask was gone, but the true expression revealed was yet more uncanny. Hungry, and odd, for a woman who seemed to have everything.

 

“May I ask why I must hurry?”

 

“I must know if there are any Catholics here at court who wish that things were different,” said Elizabeth. “I must know if there are any Catholics here who wish it so much that they would plot against me. It is said there are men and women who have been tasked by no one less than the Bishop of Rome to ensure that I abdicate my throne, and if I will not do that willingly, to take my life. In four months’ time, I am to meet with your former mistress—”

 

“ _Mary_.”

 

She released Lola’s hand.

 

“—And I must know if this medal belongs to a person who belongs to Her. Then I may deliver that person back to Her, along with my repercussions for Her offenses to me.”

 

Lola looked down in what she hoped was passable for a nod of agreement.

 

“This medal isn’t the only evidence that someone here, at my court, in my home, has been conspiring against me. But that,” said Elizabeth, who clasped her hands in front of her in clear dismissal, “you will uncover for yourself shortly. If you take my charge seriously. And you will take it seriously, Lola, won’t you?”

 

“I will not fail you, My Lady,” said Lola. “I would do anything to protect you and your crown.”

 

“To hear it spoken aloud is a great comfort,” said Elizabeth. “Enough, I hope, to allow me to rest until dawn.”

 

“My Lady,” said Lola, one final time. She found she was able to curtsey and back out of the room; her final glance up to see Elizabeth turning, not to go to bed but to go back to the window.

 

There were no guards outside the solar. There was no one to escort Lola back to her room. But there was someone out there, somewhere at court, waiting for her.

 

Finally.

 

She looked back down at the medal in her palm. She had recognized it immediately as soon as she had seen it in Elizabeth’s lap: it was Saint Stephen. A Christian who had spoken out against heresy. The stones on his shoulders were not things that he carried, but emblems of the stones used to kill him. A more contentious figure than Saint Christopher, but nothing that Elizabeth couldn’t hear about, if it weren’t for the other recognizable feature on the medal that would escape the notice of anyone, even a learned theologian, except for Lola.

 

The medal represented her husband’s saint, and in among the the palm fronds, the artist had rendered a fleur de lys: the symbol for someone who laid claim to French royalty.

 

Lord Narcisse was at English court.


End file.
